All posts tagged words

I know everything there is to know about KNOWING NOTHING AT ALL which qualifies me to dispense as many wise words of wisdom as I feel like dispensing to educate the people who think they know everything about EVERYTHING.

I’ll begin with some well known idioms.

A fool and his money is a good friend to have.

A leopard can’t change his socks.

Every cloud has a bigger cloud following it.

A picture paints a thousand NOTHINGS because pictures can’t paint, you twat.

An apple a day keeps the dentist busy because eating so much natural sugar will ROT YOUR TEETH.

If the shoe fits, find the other one – one shoe is USELESS unless you only have one foot.

Don’t put all your eggs in your mouth at once. You’ll choke.

Out of sight, out of sight.

Blood is thicker than Absinthe, but it doesn’t taste as nice even when you combine the two to make a cocktail.

A bird in the hand is worth ME PUNCHING YOU IN THE NECK. DON’T TOUCH THE LITTLE BIRDIES, YOU’LL SCARE THEM.

Feel free to add your own.

P.S. Yesterday I had a tomato with my breakfast Cumberland sausage sandwich. Today I had another tomato with my breakfast Cumberland sausage sandwich. I might have one again tomorrow and see where all this healthy eating takes me. Fuck, I might end up eating FRUIT in a few months time if I carry on like this.

Today’s Shitey Sunday Picture Post doesn’t have many pictures because I’m too lazy to go looking for proper Shitey Sunday Picture Post pictures today so I thought I’d make a post out of some of the nice little wordy posters I’ve collected. I don’t even have to comment on them because THEY’RE MADE OF WORDS!

I did a reply, then I remembered something else I wanted to add so I did another reply, then I remembered something else and got ANOTHER reply box up and started typing and typing and then I stopped and thought, oops, I better not fill up Robin’s comments with shite, plus I REALLY NEEDED TO SWEAR because these phrases ANNOY THE FUCK OUT OF ME, THEY’RE SO FUCKING STUPID. aaaahhh, that’s better. SHITEY FUCKING FUCK FUCK.

So anyway, here’s what I was going to put in the third reply box – words that people FUCK UP BADLY -

When they start every sentence with

“Generally…”

except people mistake it for ‘genuinely’

and it comes out as “Genually” (I’ve even heard this said by presenters on telly)

and they also use “genually” instead of ‘genuinely’ —

‘Genually, when I see poor people, I genually feel sorry for them.’

ARSEWIPES.

another one I’ve heard on telly LOADS OF FUCKING TIMES is

“You’ve earnt…

EARNT?

EARNT?

There’s no such word as EARNT, you dim TWATS.

DALE WANKY WINSTON ON THE LOTTERY PROGRAMME – DO NOT SAY IT AGAIN, YOU ILLITERATE ORANGE GIT.

EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT – THE ABOVE SHITE ABOUT ‘EARNT’ IS AN EXAMPLE OF MY OWN STUPIDITY AND AN EXAMPLE OF TYPOMANIA BUT MY EXCUSE IS THAT IT ISN’T IN THE DICTIONARY. BUT IT IS AN ARCHAIC WORD AND I AM

I’ve spent today filling in a FORM that should have been filled in weeks ago, a fucking nasty FORM with BIG spaces to write in and little boxes to tick and SHITEY illogical questions to answer.

When it first arrived I opened it, not realising it was a FORM. I read the letter that came with it then I stuffed it all back in the envelope and propped it up on the worktop so I wouldn’t forget about it completely (I couldn’t, it’s important or I’d have binned the thing). And for all these weeks it’s been THERE, waiting for me, whispering ‘fill me in, fill me in,’ watching me when I tried to sneak past it on tiptoe or when I got down on all fours and crawled below it’s line of sight. When I tried to go to sleep at night I could feel the EVIL emanating from it – I AM HERE AND I WON’T GO AWAY UNTIL YOU FILL ME IN – and for the last two days I haven’t been in the kitchen at all and I’m fucking STARVING and the DUE DATE that the form has to be returned by is VERY DUE so this morning I went into my kitchen with a notebook and pen and I grabbed the envelope and opened it and took out the FORM and then I laid the FORM on the table next to the notebook and pen and then I made a MASSIVE pile of Cumberland sausage sandwiches for STRENGTH and ENDURANCE and then I made another cup of coffee and then I went for a wee and then I couldn’t avoid the FORM any more so I sat down and got started on the fucker.

After filling in my name and address and shite, one of the first things it asked me was

‘Do you need an interpreter?’

and I was SO TEMPTED to put

YES

and then when it asked in what language, I wanted to put

IN MY OWN LANGUAGE WHICH IS CALLED DOTTISH

and I wanted to write that if they wouldn’t provide me with a Dottish interpreter I’d SUE THEIR BOLLOCKS OFF because that’s just SHEER, BLATANT DISCRIMINATION.

and so what if there’s only one person in the world who speaks Dottish and I’M that person, PAY ME £70.00 per hour and I’ll translate for myself, you fucking imbeciles.

Have I got MUG written across my forehead? Do I do these things for the good of my health? NO I FUCKING WELL DON’T – SO, FOLLOWERS, READERS -GO AND ADD YOUR BLOG TO THE LIST and other people will visit you and follow you and we will all be like ONE BIG HAPPY FUCKING FAMILY.

ALL RIGHT?

WELL GO ON THEN, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

I HAVE 850,492,786.5 FOLLOWERS AND ONLY 17 OF YOU HAVE POSTED LINKS TO YOUR BLOGS ON DOTTY’S PET BLOGS. SHAME ON YOU ALL.

EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT —- If you’re wondering, the Dotty’s Pet Blog page is working, I’m seeing more clicks than ever before. So I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to add YOURS to the list, unless you don’t want anyone to read it, but in that case MAKE IT PRIVATE.

But guess what, it’s sod’s fucking law he has to come back again next week because I WAS RIGHT and the boiler needs two new PARTS that can’t be ordered until Monday so won’t arrive until Wednesday but he doesn’t know WHEN he will come to fit them. If he had come yesterday when he was supposed to he could… oh, frig it, what’s the point?

He’s been.

And I DIDN’T lock him in.

I didn’t hit him.

I wasn’t sick on his shoes.

I didn’t have a panic attack (came close a couple of times).

I didn’t cry in front of him, just a few tears that I managed to blink away.

I don’t THINK he heard my heart battering away, or me whispering my special mantra for peacefulness and calm, taught to me by HISHOLEY CHEESENESS, THE DAIRY FFARMA (fuckshitebastardfuckshitebastard) but he did keep giving me funny looks so it’s possible he might have noticed.

I did stutter, but for all he knows I might HAVE a stutter and there’s nothing wrong with having a stutter, it’s only if you have a stutter when you’re a TRAMPYSHE-HERMIT that it really bothers people.

I don’t think I was TOO mental.

I did shake slightly.

I made him a cup of tea because he asked for one.

I didn’t shake enough to scald his hand when I handed him the cup of tea he asked for because I didn’t hand him the cup of tea he asked for, I left it on the kitchen worktop for him.

I did scream once but it wasn’t a mental scream it was a METAL scream due to sudden excrutiating HURTY NOISE in my ears when the bastard was trying to get the front of the boiler off and IT SOUNDED LIKE A GIANT METAL AEROPLANE SCRAPING ACROSS MY ROOF BECAUSE I HAVE HYPERACUSIS AND THE FUCKER SHOULD HAVE DONE HIS JOB QUIETLY LIKE I TOLD HIM TO.

I bleached the cup when he’d finished his tea.

And then I bleached my hands that had touched the cup that he had touched with his mouth before it was bleached.

He had stupid hair.

And he was a CHATTY BASTARD. But I know how to deal with CHATTY BASTARDS. I told him I’m deaf, which I’m not I just can’t hear properly, so he shut up and only spoke to me to ask me what he had to ask me which wasn’t much.

I wanted to go away from where he was. I really wanted to.

I couldn’t, for all the reasons that everyone can’t when they have a STRANGER IN THE HOUSE —

they steal your things

they sneak a look in your cupboards and drawers

and your fridge

they eat the food in your fridge (and I had made HEAPS of Cumberland sausages to see me through THE DAY OF WAITING)

they write rude things in the dust

they plant secret hidden mini-miniature cameras all over your house

they look for hiding places so they can sneak back in and hide until you’re asleep (which means you can’t go to sleep again)

they PISS IN YOUR SINK

they drink your beer if you have any beer, which I don’t because I don’t drink beer or any other alcoholic beverage – I am TEETOTAL apart from my morning ABSINTHE & BANANA SMOOTHIE, which doesn’t count because

1 – Absinthe is made of WORMWOOD which is a plant I grow in my garden, therefore Absinthe is a PLANT EXTRACT like SUNFLOWER OIL.

Oh, but they are stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. STUPID. When I tell you who I’m talking about you’ll agree with me and if you don’t, if you’ve ever said this thing that they say, which I’m about to tell you – well – well I don’t know what I’ll say to you if you have ever said it except DON’T EVER SAY IT AGAIN because it’s one of the most stupid things you could ever say. Saying it makes you look stupid, and I know you’re not stupid or you wouldn’t be reading my little blog.

Imagine you’re watching a game show. It doesn’t matter which one, just make it one that has a quizmaster, a contestant and a question.

The contestant is in his twenties. He’s answered most of his (or her) previous questions, he’s been to university, he’s got a good job. He doesn’t SEEM stupid –

UNTIL

the quizmaster asks the next question and the next question is something like one of these questions —

In which year did England win the world cup?

In which year did Elvis Presley die?

How long did Queen Victoria reign?

Who was the first man on the moon?

How many Number One songs did the Beatles have?

And the contestant’s answer is

‘I DON’T KNOW, I WASN’T BORN THEN.‘

On how many levels of STUPID does this contestant live? ALL OF THEM, that’s how many. I was going to do a long post about EACH LEVEL OF STUPIDITY but I decided not to because if you don’t know how STUPID this answer is then have a little think about it and if you still don’t know – DON’T ASK ME because all I will say is YOU ARE VERY, VERY STUPID AND YOUR STUPIDNESS WILL ONLY BECOME MORE STUPID AS YOU GET OLDER, YOU STUPID,STUPID PERSON.

P.S. Did anyone notice the absence of swear words in this post? Did you notice how well I did? Not even ONE swear word. I deserve a treat for that and I’m going to have one. Now.

This is one of the best films ever made. I love it. I love it, I love it, I love it. I’ve watched it about 40 times over the years and I still love it. Nothing will ever take away my love for it.

I won’t tell you ANYTHING ABOUT IT because you need to see it and love it all for yourself. It has BRILLIANT MUSIC, a BRILLIANT STORY, BRILLIANT ACTING and I love it.

The only thing that puzzles me is why does Sonny have to die in all the Mafia films he appears in? He dies in The Godfather, he dies in A Bronx Tale. I’m not certain but he probably dies in Goodfellas too. And all the other Mafia films. I wasn’t so bothered when he died in The Godfather but when he dies in A Bronx Tale I cry. Always. Poor Calogero. And when the car burns with Calogero’s friends in it, I cry then as well because that’s a REALLY SAD BIT. And when Calogero is running to try and get there to warn them, I cry then as well because I know they’re dead but he doesn’t and that’s a REALLY, REALLY SAD BIT.

But there are loads and loads of bits that make me laugh – the bit where they lock the door of the bar and kick the shit out of all the biker gang, the bit where Sonny lends Calogero his car to go on his first date with Jane, the bit where they’re all sent into the toilet … there are too many funny bits to tell. I love it.

So if you’re looking for a film to love that will make you laugh and cry and want to watch it again and again, look no further, this is it. I LOVE IT.

THE DOTTY HEADBANGER AWARD

FOR BEING MENTAL AND LOVING IT

I feel like a horrible cow for not accepting awards that people give me so I’ve decided I’m still not going to accept awards, instead I’m going to GIVE OUT MY OWN AWARD because I’m nice and kind like that and it is bettereth to giveth than to receiveth. Also, I needed to show off and brag about my new-found skill of being able to WRITE INSIDE A PICTURE which I spent all morning perfecting.

I’m not really sure how this award thing works, but from what I’ve seen there are specific QUESTIONS TO ANSWER, so here are the questions for THE DOTTY HEADBANGER AWARD FOR BEING MENTAL & LOVING IT.

QUESTIONS TO ANSWER

1. How many bricks do you own?

2. How many Cumberland sausages can you fit in your mouth without chewing?

3. What is your most inventive way of using biscuits (or cookies if you’re American)?

4. If it was made compulsory to have a mental illness which one would you choose and why? (If you have a mental illness already you have to choose another).

So now I have to give it out to people – BUT I CAN’T, I don’t want to leave someone out and watch them sitting alone in the corner crying because they haven’t been chosen (like when the BITCHES who chose the netball teams never picked ME). So what I’m going to do is present it to EVERYONE WHO READS MY LITTLE BLOG AND EVERYONE WHO PARTICIPATES IN ITS MENTALNESS to say THANK YOU VERY MUCH and you all (y’all) can do what you want with it, either give it out and MAKE ME VERY FAMOUS or ignore it (at your peril).

P.S. You now have a choice of TWO pictures, mine (the one I sweated blood and tears over) or the new posh one made by clownonfire (the link to his blog is on the right at the top of Dotty’s Pet Blogs). Choose which one you want.

I’ve spent all day rapid cycling round the Wii Sports Island. Except I don’t have a Wii exercise bike because they cost £100 so I just stomp on the Wii Fit board thingy and hold onto the control like it’s a set of handlebars. I don’t like going into the town because I keep crashing into the walls and one of these days I’m going to go head first over the handlebars and knock my eye out on the corner of the coffee table. I don’t like those scabby little animals either – Wii should make it possible for me to move my legs to the side so I can give the mangy rats a swift kick when they’re annoying me.

I have begun packing up my house. It’s a scary job, very daunting, but I’m doing it sensibly, a bit at a time, focusing on one collection before I even look at another. I started in the kitchen and you’ll be GOBSMACKED when I tell you that I have THROWN AWAY four whole collections. FOUR.

I binned my collection of 534 McCAIN’S CHIPPY CHIP BAGS.

I binned my collection of 211 OXO CONCENTRATED LIQUID STOCK BOTTLES.

I binned my collection of 4,876 DIET COKE BOTTLES (2 litres) which included LIMITED EDITION CHRISTMAS DIET COKE BOTTLES, LIMITED EDITION VALENTINE’S DAY DIET COKE BOTTLES and LIMITED EDITION 2010 FIFA WORLD CUP DIET COKE BOTTLES. When I’m in my new house I intend to begin a new collection of DIET COKE BOTTLES when they start bringing out the LONDON2012 OLYMPICS DIET COKE BOTTLES. Yes, I’ve given up some treasures but Scotty said I can only take a few collections with me and it’ll be worth it when I’m in my new house and can SEE THE DIMENSIONS OF THE ROOMS.

And I binned my collection of 1,765 SUMA TOMATO PUREE TUBES because they stank.

I didn’t bin my collection of 701 FLORA LIGHT MARGARINE TUBS because they’ll come in handy to store OTHER collections in, such as my collection of 98,543 COLOURED DRAWING PINS, or my collection of 3,621HISTORICAL TIDDLYWINKS (this collection goes back years, back to when I was five years old, and I still have the red NUMBER 1 TIDDLYWINK which I liberated when Susan Green ran off to tell her mother I had nipped her arm and spat in her hair).

I still have a few collections to sort out in the kitchen but they’re not huge. Then I’ll move on to the living room, then the hallway, then I’ll do upstairs. Generally I’ve not been panicking MUCH if I keep focused on what I’m doing and remember to take my pills at the right time. Scotty has been a great help, singing to me if I DO get a bit panicky or apathetic, cleaning all the shite that my collections have been, until now, covering up (I didn’t know spiders went HARD when they were a long time dead – the legs have been snapping off them here, there and everywhere and Scotty has had to locate every single one of them because I’m NOT sleeping in a house that has DEAD SPIDER’S LEGS all over the place), and all in all he is being the brilliant brother that he has always been.

Strangely I haven’t cried at all today, even when Scotty’s been taking the binbags out to the skip in the front garden. I just give my collections a little wave and blow them a kiss and in my mind I say a nice goodbye and hope they don’t think too badly of me. I’m surprising MYSELF with how I’m reacting (or NOT reacting) to it all and I just KNOW that this move is the best thing that could have happened, it’s come at JUST the right time. The one thing I’m looking forward to above all the other fantastic things this move will bring is going for my first walk alone. Can you picture me walking in NOWHERE? I can. I can sense the freedom, I can almost remember what it felt like to just GO OUTSIDE AND WALK without a care. Eeeeek! Eeeeeek! I can’t wait!

I’m going to go and whittle down my collection of 364 BETAMAX VIDEOS now. I might just chuck the lot out, I can’t even remember what most of them are since my BETAMAX VIDEO PLAYER broke in 1998.

After I SAVED THE WORLD this morning things went downhill in the food department and we didn’t get to have our Pretend Christmas dinner, it all went tits up (burnt bits, frozen bits in the middle, and a strange taste of Maxwell House coffee granules that I have no idea about) and we had to have Cumberland sausages, McCain’s Chippy Chips and fried eggs which were lovely but I think Scotty would have liked some turkey. But he was pleased with the present I gave him – it was a wallet (he uses lots of wallets for all his identities) and I really should have remembered that because it’s what I buy for him EVERY year, but hey-ho, we can’t remember everything can we?

But guess what? It turned out to be a lovely, lovely day, the best day I’ve ever had in my whole sorry life including my wedding day and the day I offed my husband and the day I got out of prison for offing him – this day beats them ALL (it doesn’t beat the days of my children but that’s different). And in what way, you might ask, was it such a good day? I’ll tell you —

MY PRETEND CHRISTMAS PRESENT FROM SCOTTY IS A HOUSE IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE.

It’s a proper house in proper NOWHERE, all you can see for miles around are fields and hills and moors and NO HOUSES which means NO PEOPLE which means I can start trying to go out alone without worrying I’ll make a tit of myself if I have a panic attack because there aren’t even any SHEEP to watch me, and NO EYES MEANS NO SPIES so I might soon be able to GO FOR WALKS ON MY OWN in the lovely countryside without fear of MEETING SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO TALK TO ME or PASSING SOMEONE WHO LOOKS AT ME.

Can you imagine it? I can’t, not fully, not yet, it’s too much of a miracle to actually HAVE what I’ve always dreamt of, a lovely little house of my own that I can live in for always, a garden I can plant trees in and know I’ll see them grow, acres and acres of beautifulness to look at every day AND NO ONE CAN EVER TAKE IT AWAY FROM ME, EVER. Is it too good to be true? – Scotty laughed when I asked him that and then he switched on my laptop and went on the internet and showed me pictures and I AM IN LOVE WITH IT, ALL OF IT. It’s beyond perfection, it’s THE idyllic ideal and my house has a NAME not a number like every other house I’ve ever lived in, it has a real NAME and it has a PORCH and it has a CONSERVATORY but not a new plastic conservatory, an old wooden one that runs the length of the back of the house, and it has cute little SASH WINDOWS that I want to KISS they are so gorgeous and it has EVERYTHING I EVER WANTED AND MORE and I can’t wait to go and see it.

I’ll NEVER be able to thank my lovely generous brother enough for what he’s given me. I was worried about the cost but he said he’s been paid VERY, VERY WELL INDEED for his last two jobs and all that time spent trying to get out of LIBYA was billed at TIME AND A HALF plus he got a BIG BONUS for infiltrating the NLA and doing what he did, so he ended up with more money than he could ever spend on himself (I WAS going to bring up the subject of CHILD SUPPORT but it was such a happy day I didn’t want to spoil it with an argument about him shirking his responsibilities so I left it for now – but I WILL bring it up before he leaves).

This is like a dream. Good things never happen to me, just one miserable thing after another, and NEVER has anything so wonderful come out of the blue like this.

It was the scream that brought them. First the police, then the ambulance, then the fight, then the jab in my arse, then the hospital bed, then the stitches in the burr holes at the top of my forehead, then the FLAPPY-MOUTHED HEADSHRINKINGFUCKFACEDBASTARDINGDICKWAD WHO WOULDN’T KNOW A MENTAL PERSON IF THEY STABBED HIM IN THE THROAT WITH HIS OWN BOWTIE TO SHUT THE FUCKER UP, then home again this morning in time for my breakfast (a Cumberland sausage sandwich – I was bloody starving).

I’m bricking up the front door. At this minute, as I write, I’m waiting for the dust to settle in the bathroom. I know I said I didn’t want to knock down any more walls but this is unavoidable. That front door will never, ever open again. Not to anyone. They can all fuck off and leave me alone, I will NEVER NEVER NEVER speak to any of them again, why couldn’t she just keep her nose out of what doesn’t concern her? And who gave her the key? Not me, I give NOBODY a key to my house, how did she get it the THIEVING BITCH she must have swiped it because it’s my LOST KEY, the one I spent days and days looking for last year and I never found it and it’s worried me ever since but SHE had it all along.

She used my key to let herself in. She invaded my HOME and my PRIVACY and my DIGNITY and what will the police do about it? FUCK ALL, that’s what, they won’t arrest her, they won’t warn her, they won’t even TAKE MY FUCKING KEY OFF HER. She can come into my home whenever she wants, and that’s not right, where are MY RIGHTS, if I stole HER key and sneaked into HER house I’d be done for BREAKING AND ENTERING, but no, because I’m not RIGHT IN THE FUCKING HEAD anyone can come into MY house at ANY TIME OF THE DAY OR NIGHT. And how can ANYONE live like that? Tell me, I want to know. The nights are bad enough when you can’t sleep and every little noise is the sound of your head caving in on itself, or an axeman coming through the window, or a creature, or a monster, or your dear dead Daddy turned EVIL UNDEAD DADDY like he sometimes does and on top of that there’s now the possibility that SHE will be creeping through my rooms spying on me again.

THE POLICE ARE USELESS AND THICK. Can’t they see what she’s doing? Why are they conspiring with her? They won’t get my key back but they take away my little hand-drill, why? Why? It’s my own business what I do with it, I wasn’t hurting anyone was I? It’s A LITTLE FUCKING HAND-DRILL for christ’s sake, not a Black & Decker power drill, if I was trepanning with THAT I could see why they’d take it off me, but I wasn’t, was I, so basically the police have THIEVED my little hand-drill and I’m going to report them, I’m going to sue the bastards to get it back, they had NO RIGHT to take it.

She said she didn’t mean to scream. She said it was the shock that made her. If she hadn’t been spying on me in the first place she wouldn’t have got a shock, would she? And her fat fucking fool of a husband, what was he doing driving her here in the first place, why wasn’t he at home looking after their BRATS? And what did he THINK caused her to scream, did he think I was killing her or something, if he thought that why didn’t he come inside to HELP HER, eh, instead of SITTING IN HIS CAR to phone the police? The cowering fat fuck needs to grow a pair, she could have been dying for all he knew and what did he do, he WAITED OUTSIDE FOR THE POLICE TO COME. Why did she marry such a wimp? SOFT SOUTHERN BASTARD.

What is this compulsion she has to spy on me? What is it? I can’t understand it, most of the time what I am offends all her instincts and sensibilities and she can’t even bring herself to look at me. She said I wasn’t answering the phone but I didn’t HEAR the poxy phone, if I couldn’t HEAR it how could I ANSWER IT?

Forgiving her for this will never be an option. Not for this.

I asked her – What have I done that’s so bad? I don’t slap babies or disembowel rabbits.

It’s funny how thinking about one thing always leads to thinking about another. Except when you’re comatose, no one knows what your thoughts do then and there are no memories to show you afterwards. My little foray into thinking got me thinking a bit more today, not much, just one question that kept repeating itself over and over and still won’t go away –

What is Dotty?

No answers come. There are no answers. To have answers you first need truths and all my truths went out of the window years ago. One truth that everyone on this planet thinks they are certain of is BEING BORN. I’ve never been certain of it. How do I know I was born? I only have meine Mami’s word for it and that’s not really proof, is it, it’s hearsay. I don’t remember ANYTHING about my alleged birth and you’d think I would seeing as it’s up there with DEATH in the list of major life events.

Some of us trudging this planet might not even be homo sapiens, we might be another, different, cousin species of the first apes to stand up, homo doomigloomius, homo slittywrists, homo whythefuckamIevenhere. Because most of the time I don’t feel human and human behaviour confounds and baffles me and I think, Dotty they are just like you without the fuckupiness, but no, they’re NOT, they’re SO different that I can only conclude I’m right about not being completely human, or either I’M not completely human or THEY’RE not, it depends who and what the original namer of the species was – if he was a happy chappy then THEY became humans, if it was a miserable fuck then We Who Are Mental did.

But if we ARE all one species then it all becomes truly tragic and hopeless (which is the way WE see it now – which, I suppose, is a TRUTH after all). If we are all one species then NORMAL people are merely posturing their way through life in the hope that others will believe they too are NORMAL. Scratch down a bit and We Who Are Mental would see them for what they really are, reflections of ourselves, because it can’t work the other way round, scratch OUR surfaces and all you’d find is more of the same. And worse.

Which is why, one species or not, WE will always be the not-quite-human humans (if we are human at all), made to feel like an alien species, unborns, mental abominations, fucking loose-minded loonies who need locking away. But it isn’t US they really fear even though they think it is – it’s what they see in us, the dark reflection, it’s what they hear in us, their own echo, it’s what they know when they think of us – that IT lives somewhere within themselves too. And it truly terrifies them. As it should.

Always being alone in your house can be dangerous but combine it with not speaking to other people and it becomes potentially fatal. I’ve had many accidents that could have been serious if I hadn’t known what to do at the time. To avoid death (and why NOT avoid it, you avoid everything else – why should death be any different?) here are a few First Aid basics you really do need to know. Bear in mind I’m NOT a doctor, I can only tell you what I personally do when I injure myself.

I’m presuming you have a well-stocked medicine room, if not just make note of the items in big writing and get your Shopping Person to get them for you- I can’t be bothered making a shopping list for you today.

Bumps and Bruises

For bangs on the head caused by banging your head on the wall fill the sink with equal amounts of ABSINTHE and WITCH HAZEL and put your head in it (be careful not to drown). This will help to bring out the bruising. If you think you might have knocked yourself out then it’s possible you might have concussion or a brain injury so go and have a little lie down for a while until the headache has gone. A big swig of Laudanum will help with the pain.

Nicks and Cuts

For little nicks on your fingers caused by the cheese grater, or for slightly deeper cuts from the scissors you use to separate your Cumberland sausage links, stop whining and stick a PLASTER on it. Deeper nicks and cuts, (such as when you’ve bought a cow home and you’re butchering it so you can freeze some for later and you chop half your hand off instead of the cow’s head), require an antiseptic ointment of OPIUM and LARD, a BANDAGE, and a strip of plaster to stop your bandage from unravelling. Clean the wound first though with your ARSENICDISINFECTANT OINTMENT. A big swig of Laudanum will help with the pain.

If you haven’t yet learned how to cook your Cumberland sausages you might have a few stomach problems. First of all, always cook your Cumberland sausages for at least an hour, contrary to popular belief crispy is good, so is black. To cure stomach upsets already caused by uncooked Cumberland sausages make WORMWOOD tea (if you’re not a gardener you can use ABSINTHE but not too much because it’s a potent alcoholic drink and you don’t want to get addicted). A big swig of Laudanum will help with the pain.

Twisted, Sprained or Broken Arms and Legs

If you haven’t cleaned your house yet you’re at great risk of tripping over some bit of shite that shouldn’t be on your floor. This is VERY PAINFUL when you do it and as you’ve no way of knowing the severity of the injury (unless you have your own X-Ray machine which I’m saving up for) it’s best to err on the side of caution and SPLINT the limb you’ve damaged. If your stock of pre-made splints has run out and you’ve been too idle to make some more, it serves you right, you should keep up with your housework, I’ve already told you this. If you’re a new hermit and this is the first time you need a splint, what you do is you take a shelf from your bookcase (lay the books in neat piles on the floor) saw it down to fit your arm or leg and strap it on to said arm or leg. You can use anything to secure it (I’ve found knee-socks work well) as long as it’s tied tight enough for the splint to stay on. Keep the splint on for about 3 months. Big swigs of Laudanum taken hourly will help with the pain.

Strangling Yourself On Your Shower Curtain

It might happen that one day you’re playing with your (toy) ducks in the bath and you get a bit too involved and try to swim with them underwater but when you dive you hit your head on the bottom and can’t get up and to save yourself from drowning you grab the shower curtain but you’re so disorientated you get into a fight with it and it wraps itself round your neck and tries to strangle you and when you finally get free of it you’re left with nasty strangle contusions round your neck. And it bloody well hurts. A lot. Well sorry, there’s nothing you can do for this except take a big swig of Laudanum to help with the pain.

May you all remain injury-free and painless, my hermits. Be safe, be careful, and most of all be prepared.

Just because you’re a hermit doesn’t mean you have to be unfit. On the days you are able to move your arse to the fridge to see what you want to eat (which is most days, isn’t it?) you can also do a little workout. Don’t panic, this is a good exercise.

We all know the main reason we hermits don’t exercise isn’t because we’re lazy, it’s because exercise is BORING. What’s interesting about standing in your kitchen holding onto the back of a chair and flinging your leg about like a loony when there’s nobody in front of you to kick? NOTHING. Or lying on your rug trying to do a sit-up when it takes you all morning to will yourself to sit up in bed? Nothing, nothing at all. Doing step routines at the bottom of your stairs, jogging on the spot, waving tins of beans in the air in the hope that your bingo wings will disappear … boring, boring, boring. There are so many boring exercises to do in a standard routine, leg lifts, waist twists, arm crunches, ab crunches, blah blah blah blah blah. And then there’s all that counting. Who can concentrate past 4? If you weren’t chronically depressed to start with you soon would be.

What you need – a strong kitchen table, 2 big bottles of diet coke, a fan, a teaspoonful of salt, a cd player (or a new-fangled way of playing music that isn’t a cd player but just WRONG, how can you hoard a load of nothings?), a cd with the theme tune to Jaws (the one that goes DU-DU-DU-DU, DU-DU-DU-DU – don’t get anxious, it’s only music).

Begin by clearing all the shite off your kitchen table. Then disinfect it unless you don’t mind getting old germs and god knows what else all over you. Move the chairs out of the way. Place the diet coke where the chairs used to be. Place the fan so it will blow directly in your face and turn it on (high setting). Get your teaspoonful of salt and put it on your tongue. Turn on your cd player, insert cd, play Jaws on repeat (or do whatever you do with your MP pod gadget thing).

Stand at one end of the table. Bend forward and lie face down on the table (not actually face down, that would be stupid, you can turn your head to the side). Bring your arms above your head and grip the underside of the tabletop with both hands. Drag yourself forward until your whole body is on the table, including your knees (it’s okay if your head dangles off at the other end).

Shut your eyes for a minute. Listen to Jaws. He’s coming (NOT REALLY) and the life raft you’re lying on has just tipped this way and that on a wave. A storm is brewing, the wind is strong. This is your third day clinging to the raft. When the raft tipped, your supply of fresh water fell into the sea and now it’s going to float away if you don’t get it back. The thirst is excrutiating.

Open your eyes. Hold on to the underside of the raft with your left hand, (DU-DU-DU-DU, DU-DU-DU-DU). Slide yourself sideways and stretch your right arm down to reach your first water container. Stretch. Use your knees to keep you on the raft. Stretch more. Jaws is circling – when you get the water container you can bat him away for a while with a bop on the nose. Keep stretching until you have the water and remember, the container is heavy. When you have it, lift it onto the raft and put it at the side of your head. Repeat to get the container on your left.

WARNING – If at any point during this exercise you start to panic don’t worry, even normals would panic in this situation so try not to give in to sudden suicidal thoughts by rolling into the sea for Jaws to eat you, be strong and USE THE PANIC TO ESCAPE FROM HIM.

When you have retrieved your water containers, take one in each hand (firmly, by the lid) and lower them back over the sides of the raft. Swing them back and forth. Lift them up and down. This paddling will frighten Jaws (DU-DU-DU-DU, DU-DU-DU-DU) and keep him away for a while and will also help you reach dry land sooner rather than later. Continue until you feel you can’t hold the containers any more. Do not let them drop into the sea. Bring them back up onto the raft, sit up (carefully, you don’t want to tip over) and have a little drink.

When you’ve had enough refreshment (not too much, it has to last) lie on your back. This position is precarious because you might easily roll off if a big wave comes so lower your legs and arms over the sides and grip the undersides of the raft. Stretch and grip as hard as you can, your life depends on it. Stay like that until you think you might get cramp.

Repeat these steps once a day. When you get used to harnessing the power of your panic attacks and using it to paddle the raft, get on it at night, in the dark. This makes the adventure more realistic and you’ll use more muscles because being on the open sea at night with Jaws swimming round and round you isn’t safe.

Once upon a time Dotty had to see a psychiatrist. She can’t remember his name but she can remember his tie, a purple and orange strip of silk with a small knot that could have been made much smaller if someone (not Dotty) had decided to give it a substantial tug. She also remembers his shirt. It was green like a lime, also made of silk. People had made Dotty go to see him, she wasn’t that keen to be honest.

Oh stop it. Stop-stop-stop. Writing about myself in the third person is insane. It’s all right doing it when I’m giving instructions or advice or tips or orders, but when I’m writing a serious post for my blog it’s just silly – it makes me look like I’m a Multiple Personality Hermit when I’m not, (there’s only the two of us and I haven’t heard from the other one for a while, she’ll be watching the Eastenders omnibus again – she idolises Jean Slater). Okay, back to what I was writing and this time do it properly, Dotty.

His office was in a flat above a laundrette. The stairwell was dark and I had to hold onto the railings so I wouldn’t fall, (this is not a metaphor, there was no bulb in the landing light). His office had once been a bedroom, I could tell by the tatty Magic Roundabout wallpaper. It was faded and peeling. Zebedee-boing was torn off at the waist, his spring was missing; Ermintrude’s flower was gone too. The room smelled foisty and damp – the smell rose up from the carpet, a cloying scent of the despair of the mentals who had trodden there, a miasma of every single one of their fallen tears gone rotten. Or it could have been the wet washing hanging up downstairs.

As soon as I set eyes on him I knew. I just knew. I was proved right when he stuck out his hand for me to shake: what sort of shrink does that? Didn’t he know what a handshake would do to a hermit? Of course he did, he knew very well. I counted how long he stood there trying to psych me out with his sadistic, fat hand. Forty-eight horrendous seconds. The fingers were like … no, I won’t think of them as being like sausages or my dinner will be spoiled. They were like huge, slithery white slugs. He got the message that I wasn’t going to touch him and slinked his hand into his pocket then introduced himself (still can’t remember his name) and asked me if I wanted to sit or lie on the couch in the corner of the room. His politeness was fake like his big white teeth (they looked American) that appeared whenever he smiled which was whenever he wasn’t talking. I needed a lie down by then so I got on the couch and curled up on my right side for a sleep.

My face was turned to the wall but I could feel him watching me and I couldn’t doze off. His eyes were lasering into the back of my head, I could feel the burning. The longer it went on the more I realised that the pasty-faced creep had me pinned, mentally, to the couch. I couldn’t move. I sensed him behind me, slobbering at the thought of the juicy black secrets he knew he could psychiat out of me, (yes, that is a real word, I decided it is), wheedle, wheedle, wheedle, prise, prise, prise. I knew I had to do something or he’d make me talk but the bit of wall I was looking at was yellow and yellow always makes me feel sick. Really sick. Really, really sick. (Yes, it really does, but this IS a metaphor and I’m not afraid to use it). I felt so sick I had to close my eyes against the yellow. I couldn’t speak. And because I couldn’t speak and he could, he kept on and on and on, his voice dinning through me like a barrage of machine-gun fire. I concentrated, not on his words, just his voice, ratta-tatta-ratta-tatta-ratta-tatta and it did work, it calmed the yellow-sickness enough for me to think ‘What would Harry Hill do, Dotty? What would Harry Hill do?’ and it came to me right away, like a kiss from Baby Jesus or from a rose, this is what Harry Hill would do —

HEADBANGER V HEADSHRINKER

Who wins?

There’s only one way to decide …

FIGHT

Of course I knew I couldn’t hit him or I’d have been arrested again, but that didn’t stop me wanting to stuff my elbow down his throat and leave it there for the remaining 55 minutes. If I couldn’t twat him one, I was going to have to beat him with my sausage-sharp mind. He still wouldn’t stop staring and yakking, but I gathered all my powers and KAPOW!! I sprang off that couch like a wild sheep off a standing stone and jumped in front of him, but as I did so I felt overwhelmingly yellow-sick again and — well, what happened next wasn’t nice. His tie and his shirt got it. All of it. The shock was too much for him, he stopped talking mid-jabber with his mouth still half open on a word. His American teeth slipped slightly in his mouth, settling back at an odd angle so he looked like a picture of The Godfather by Picasso.

Where have you gone? Are you hiding from me? I think I last heard from you three weeks ago when we had to calculate how much we owe everyone and work out how to pay them. You did well and I thought we had come to an understanding, that you could idle around for most of the time but would come to the rescue when I really, really need you. What happened? Was the adding up too much for you? Did I make you do a wrong number?

I keep knocking but you never answer. Taptaptaptaptap. Bangbangbangbangbang.

Where could you hide? There’s nowhere for you to go, you’re the same as me – you live in a vaccuum, dark and sealed. Did you find an escape route and run away when I was sleeping? Did you buy a French breast implant and sneak it under my skull hoping I wouldn’t notice in time to stop you? Well, it worked. Inside my head feels all woolly and dense, like a bulging, overstuffed mattress and if someone jumped on it they would bounce and bounce and bounce.

Trying to figure out where you are is hard without you. I know I haven’t treated you well lately and I don’t blame you if you have run away, I’d do the same myself if I could get out of this house. I know you miss the Outside just as much as I do, but we have fresh air when we open the windows and the sun shines through the house for much of the day. Isn’t that enough for you? I know we can’t go for walks like we used to, up on the moors to ride the wild sheep, to feel their springy power as we gallop over the tussocky hummocks of grass, the wind ragging through our hair and their fleece; to see their little faces as we bleat and baa to them in their own language, alleviating their loneliness for a short, sweet time. I miss that too, Brain. You’re not the only one.

If you come back I will make you a promise. For one day in the week I will eat fish instead of Cumberland sausages. And I will buy Omega 3 supplements and take them every day. That’s actually two promises, but you’re worth it. Also, I will buy a book of Sudoku puzzles, the hard ones. And I will never, ever watch television again (except clever programmes like University Challenge and Top Gear).

A good game for hermits to play is Consonant Swap. It’s a bit like Countdown, it keeps your brain from shrinking and also you can laugh at people, but it doesn’t have Nick from The Apprentice on it (I liked him better than Margaret). It has no rules except you have to swap AT LEAST the first letters of the christian and surname but no vowels can move. If either of the names begins with a vowel, ie Andy Roper, (a nutter who used to chase me down the street every day), you just move the consonants on the surname and voila, Andy Roper becomes Randy Oper which the weirdy perv should have been named in the first place (it might or might not be coincidence but many swaps produce very apt alternatives). Some hermits might choose to move a vowel but that’s the bastard version, unlicensed and illegal, and the game is called CONSONANT SWAP. Idiots.

Consonant Swap isn’t merely an amusement, it can double up as a weapon (see Weaponry). If family and friends persisit in visiting you what you do is you point your finger in their face, laugh like a witch (or if you are a man, a witch’s bitch) and call them by their Consonant Swap name, always. This works wonderfully – an ex friend of mine was able to alienate her mother forever by using this game as a weapon – her mother’s name is Maggie Slater, her Consonant Swap name is Slaggie Mater.

My Consonant Swap name is strange and creepy. No one should laugh at it.

Dotty Headbanger = Hotty Deadbanger.

See.

Here’s a little list to say out loud. Friar Tuck is not on it.

David Cameron = Cavid Dameron (boring either way round)

Nick Clegg = Click Negg (ditto above comment)

Kate Middleton = Mate Kiddleton (awww)

Jude Law = Lude Jaw (HAHAHAHAHAHA – I like that one. I’m so funny)

Robert Pattinson = Pobert Rattinson (from cool to fool)

Justin Bieber = Bustin Jieber (makes no difference, I don’t know who he is anyway but my niece likes him)

Calista Flockhart = Flalista Cockhart (????)

Katie Holmes = Hatie Kolmes (yes she does, looking at the state of her hair)

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